With Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn attending the funeral of Kyra McKee the duty of PMQs was left to their understudies.

Normally the exchanges between Emily Thornberry and David Lidington are an enjoyable knockabout between two MPs of contrasting styles.

Ms Thornberry plays the part of a bar-room barrister celebrating a decent court win while Lidington adopts the role of monkish lecturer having to deal with a troublesome student.

In acknowledgment of the murder of Lyra and the atrocities in Sri Lanka today’s questions were rightly more sober in tone.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary gently probed what the Government was doing to protect the peace in Northern Ireland and received, in turn, an answer which saw Lidington make all the correct noises without saying anything of any significance.

Ms Thornberry then tried to link the recent upsurge in violence in the province to the Irish Border question.

Emily Thornberry ditched the jokes for a forensic analysis of Brexit

She cited a leaked Home Office report which suggested that the Government’s plan to use technology to resolve the Border issue was unworkable, untested and unfunded.

The answer, she patiently suggested, was for the Government to keep the UK in a customs union.

Lidington refused to be drawn down this track and, without any real conviction, argued that Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement remained the only plausible way of resolving this vexed issue.

At this point Ms Thornberry abandoned her tortuous personal battle between wanting to be a serious stateswoman and her natural instinct to play to the crowd.

Somehow she managed to lever into the conversation a reference to Donald Trump’s state visit which she branded a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money before adding it may be worth it if he ending up sitting between Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough at the official dinner.

Lidington then recalled that his opponent had previously said it was in the country’s interest to work with Mr Trump and suggested her opposition to the President's visit was down to her leadership ambitions.

David Lidington had the right tone but said little of substance

This rather pathetic jibe was flicked away without any effort as Ms Thornberry noted the only leadership contest taking place at the moment was in the Conservative Party.

Her final question saw Ms Thornberry return to a more serious tone as she asked about the cross-party talks on Brexit.

Mr Lidington, having previously suggested the negotiations were struggling, now decided they could still succeed if both sides were prepared to compromise and act in the national interest.

This was his lamest response and perhaps indicated that privately he agreed with his opponent on the customs union.